reach the street which I had indicated. On the step of the door of the rag-and-bone shop that formed the basement of the house whence I had seen the old man come, two white-faced children sate staring with lack-lustre eyes. Shrilly they shrieked to a slattern in the shop, that ill had befallen the “old second floor,” and that he was being brought home by two gents and a bobby in a cab.
We lifted him gently into the house, and asked to be directed to his room. The slattern sent a child before us, who led us up the dirty stairs. The door of his room was locked, but I felt the key in his pocket as I held him. We committed our charitable trespass, and brought him into his own room.
It was very bare and very desolate. There was a thinly-covered bedstead in a corner, and on this we placed the helpless body. The only furniture, beyond the merest necessities, was a row of some twenty volumes on the floor. And in a corner were piled, in order, five-and-thirty MS. books, matching the one which I had rescued from the gutter, all labelled and numbered from i. to xxxv. The nearest approach to anything edible was a half-burned tallow candle in an old brass stand. I felt a thrill of pity for the misery that I might have alleviated. Did it remind me that I might relieve misery without the passing incentive of a sentimental interest in a stranger? If not, it ought to have done so.
The time that I had taken had sufficed for my friend to pass sentence on the patient. “He has received a violent shock, and probably some internal injury. There are no bones broken, but he has not many minutes to live.” And, in truth, an unpractised eye would have deemed him dead already, so motionless he lay. Awed and silent we waited by the mean pallet. My friend held in his hearty brown hand the shrunken wrist. In another minute he laid it gently on the couch. “The pulse is still,” he said. “His labour here is over.”
And so the old man lay in state on his poor hearse. On his wan pinched face there was
No other thing expressed
Than long disquiet merged in rest.
The worn, frail body had not been strong enough to support the shock that robbed it of its soul. It was only lean and very coarsely clad, but to me it had a certain majesty as it lay palled in its old rags. I knew little of its departed tenant; but thus much I did know, that he had spent much at least of his life, in the earnest prosecution of one allotted work. So much was proved by the toil in the Museum, and the pile of MSS. in the corner. Of how many could the epitaph be said with truth that they had done any one work with all their might? Perseverance always wins respect, even when it is akin to infatuation. I had witnessed the dead man’s perseverance, and had no reason to suspect him of folly. I could not but honour his memory.
And his book? Surely I might take with me that one volume of all the thirty-six—that one which I had saved from ignominy. I would return it to any one having a claim to the effects of the deceased who might be discovered by my inquiries. I longed to learn something of that ponderous monument of patient industry—the fruit of the work of years. Was it likely to benefit mankind?
I placed it in the great pocket of my loose overcoat, determining to examine it at greater leisure. By the help of the policeman who had accompanied us the necessary communications were made to the local authorities. My friend was compelled to leave me to conclude the business by myself, but I did not depart until I had made arrangements for every necessary search to be made for the possible kinsmen of the dead man, and had promised to defray the expenses of a decent funeral in case it should appear that the old man was utterly friendless. His landlady knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he had lodged in her room for about three months, and had spent the whole day abroad. He owed her only for two days’ rent. She had never known of any one having visited her tenant. He was very quiet and very harmless. Quiet and harmless enough now was his corpse, poor old man! I extracted a promise from the slattern that she would allow no one to enter his room with the exception of the servants of the parish and the coroner. She undertook that the door should be kept locked. I could not bear the idea of the inroads of the lazy loungers of the alley in the room which had all the sanctity of the grave.
I arrived late that day at the Museum, and did little when I reached it. D. 7 was vacant for me, but how changed was D. 8! A grave gentleman was studying in the original The Love-Letters of Aristænetus. (It was not always the youths of eighteen who misused their privilege of entry.) I made many a bold effort to fix my attention on my work, but it was no use. The image of the old man was perpetually before me. I read or wrote for some five minutes at a time, and then fidgetted or pondered for twenty. At last I determined to give up work for the day. I called in a cab on my way home at the house where the dead man lay, and learned the hour of the inquest on the morrow. It was to be at three in the afternoon. I had no opportunity that night to study the MS. in my pocket, for I was going out to a dinner-party. The sadness of the morning and the festivity of the evening jarred on my spirit, and the thought of the old man haunted me. I bade my host good night before his other guests, and walked to my chambers in “the dewy freshness” of the “silent air.” I determined to go to my bed without delay, and, having risen, vegetus ad munia in the morning, to get through such a portion of my work as should make up for the deficiency of the previous day, and enable me to attend the inquest with a clear conscience.
My rest in the night was something like my labour in the day. It was disturbed by the recollection of the old man who had been run over. I saw him pause before he left the pavement. I was the driver of the van that killed him. I was eating venison and sipping white port in the room where he lay dead. I was compelled to transcribe six-and-thirty quartos in as many hours. I was